There are more of us than there are of them

[Zardnaar]

@Zardnaar

I didn't justify anything, if that's the amount you're not going to read my posts please don't be surprised if I don't bother with a serious answer. Bonus points for going "modern conservatives aren't fascist because it's an inaccurate label" and then put "extreme left" and "their effect is similar to Stalinism" in the same blooming sentence

I guess silly labels are okay when you use them?


Because we don't have better labels. You're the one claiming that "fascist" isn't appropriate anymore, but why isn't it? It's a pretty general descriptor for a type of government (or its adherents; the people who either directly want to see it in, or are happy with seeing it in). It's fine to recognise historical baggage, but you also need to be able to see modern parallels, regardless of the difference in implementation.

I disagree with your core point, basically. The way in which fascism is advanced has changed. The ways in which people are radicalised to believing it could be a functioning form of governance has changed (less so in some respects; a lot of it still involves nationalistic fervour and an often loosely-defined fear of the Other, whoever or whatever that Other may be). But that doesn't mean it isn't fascism.

Sure, we're not going to get an exact repeat of historical events. Not in the same way. But fascism, and people who believe in that kind of rule, are very much alive and trying to (or succeeding in, depending on where you sit) erode what you would consider Western democratic norms. I mean, all labels are for a sake of convenience. Look at Australia. It's lumped in by proxy with Western or otherwise English-speaking first-world nations, but it's in Oceania! It's not precisely accurate, but folks generally get what you mean. Outside of an academic paper, or a scenario where that kind of accuracy matters, nobody's really going to quibble with you equating the two.

Modern extreme lefties aren't Stalinists hell I don't think most if them are Communists.

They are fairly intolerant though and don't look at diverse viewpoints or even evidence that contradicts their preconstructed narrative. And since they use hyperbolic and incindary language they're not that different in that respect. There's a lot more of them though so they're more visible.

It's not the local fascists here putting up posters advocating violence but the local lefties buying into what's coming out of America.

So you have local antifa wanting to go beat up Nazis but there's either no local Nazis to beat up or if they exist you can't identify them.

The one that shot up the Mosque was a foreign terrorist. I can't do anything about radicalization overseas especially in Australia which in my experience with them they're more racist than Americans. Or at least more vocal about it.

 

[Gorbles]

You know, about 300 years ago, all of the currently extant and used socio-political labels didn't exist. Basically, the point being, just because a more appropriate label is already present mean falling back on old labels that are not appropriate, but arbitrarily declaring "they're all we have, so we're going to use them, everyone will accept, and we'll force them into definition," is awe-inspiringly retrograde and, actually, quite Paleoconservative thinking. No, like has been done numerous times before, you create a new label to name a new phenomenon. I had thought that was already self-explanatory and well-known.

Except that 300 years ago is five times the span (roughly) since the end of WWII. Probably closer to four times the span. Regardless, you only have to go back a hundred years further to find the origin of Modern English. You're describing quite a long period of time there (punctuated by incredibly important advances like the rising popularity of the printing press, various industrial revolutions, and so on).

Your issue here is etymological, it seems, rather than any objection to a point being made. I'm sorry, but this seems incredibly silly. If I could ask you to perhaps see past that, to the actual meaning being used? Surely that isn't a hard ask. We're on a web forum, and most of us are bound only by hobbies.

Like I said, I've yet to see any argument where 20th-century fascism is divergent from modern offshoots. Add to that the significant overlap between modern fascists, (literal) Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, and I feel you really have your work cut out for you here to object in any more than theoretical etmyological terms. Doesn't this seem like a waste of time? If you now know what I mean, can't we discuss that instead?

Modern extreme lefties aren't Stalinists hell I don't think most if them are Communists.

They are fairly intolerant though and don't look at diverse viewpoints or even evidence that contradicts their preconstructed narrative. And since they use hyperbolic and incindary language they're not that different in that respect. There's a lot more of them though so they're more visible.

It's not the local fascists here putting up posters advocating violence but the local lefties buying into what's coming out of America.

So you have local antifa wanting to go beat up Nazis but there's either no local Nazis to beat up or if they exist you can't identify them.

The one that shot up the Mosque was a foreign terrorist. I can't do anything about radicalization overseas especially in Australia which in my experience with them they're more racist than Americans. Or at least more vocal about it.

If modern leftists aren't analoguous to Stalinists, maybe don't compare them in the same sentence? While objecting to overly-broad comparisons? This isn't hard

 

[Cloud_Strife]

They are fairly intolerant though and don't look at diverse viewpoints or even evidence that contradicts their preconstructed narrative. And since they use hyperbolic and incindary language they're not that different in that respect. There's a lot more of them though so they're more visible.

Diverse viewpoints such as what Zardnaar? That I'm a freak or worthy of abuse/extermination? Give me a break! Those aren't "diverse viewpoints", they're troubling indicators of future violence and they're not equivalent to people merely holding different views, they are holding views that demonstrably lead to people being harmed, implicitly and explicitly.

I don't want to be around anyone who thinks i don't have right to be who i am, you may tolerate that to varying degrees but i don't.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Nazi wartime industry was completely different in nature than the "military-industrial complex," Eisenhower warned about on his leaving the White House. To capsulate the point, the Executive President of Messerschmitt did not dictate terms through bribery, lobbying, or political coercion to Hitler, like the Board of Directors of Haliburton did to George W. Bush.

It wasn't the same as the military-industrial complex but it wasn't the same as the Soviet Union either. It was a partner, junior partner admittedly, but not without influence.

 

[Zardnaar]

Except that 300 years ago is five times the span (roughly) since the end of WWII. Probably closer to four times the span. Regardless, you only have to go back a hundred years further to find the origin of Modern English. You're describing quite a long period of time there (punctuated by incredibly important advances like the rising popularity of the printing press, various industrial revolutions, and so on).

Your issue here is etymological, it seems, rather than any objection to a point being made. I'm sorry, but this seems incredibly silly. If I could ask you to perhaps see past that, to the actual meaning being used? Surely that isn't a hard ask. We're on a web forum, and most of us are bound only by hobbies.

Like I said, I've yet to see any argument where 20th-century fascism is divergent from modern offshoots. Add to that the significant overlap between modern fascists, (literal) Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, and I feel you really have your work cut out for you here to object in any more than theoretical etmyological terms. Doesn't this seem like a waste of time? If you now know what I mean, can't we discuss that instead?


If modern leftists aren't analoguous to Stalinists, maybe don't compare them in the same sentence? While objecting to overly-broad comparisons? This isn't hard

I didn't compare them made the observation that when extremists are drawing lines in the sand by default you're trying to get moderates to join in.

So conservatives get the choice of throwing in with the Fascists or people who want to harm them and there's.

Same thing with the left of center they can throw in with the nutters on their side or the nutters on the other side.

IDK if this is deliberate. But both extremists aren't that a large number neither can win an election.

 

[Patine]

Except that 300 years ago is five times the span (roughly) since the end of WWII. Probably closer to four times the span. Regardless, you only have to go back a hundred years further to find the origin of Modern English. You're describing quite a long period of time there (punctuated by incredibly important advances like the rising popularity of the printing press, various industrial revolutions, and so on).

Your issue here is etymological, it seems, rather than any objection to a point being made. I'm sorry, but this seems incredibly silly. If I could ask you to perhaps see past that, to the actual meaning being used? Surely that isn't a hard ask. We're on a web forum, and most of us are bound only by hobbies.

Like I said, I've yet to see any argument where 20th-century fascism is divergent from modern offshoots. Add to that the significant overlap between modern fascists, (literal) Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, and I feel you really have your work cut out for you here to object in any more than theoretical etmyological terms. Doesn't this seem like a waste of time? If you now know what I mean, can't we discuss that instead?


If modern leftists aren't analoguous to Stalinists, maybe don't compare them in the same sentence? While objecting to overly-broad comparisons? This isn't hard

You're dismissal ignore my point. Why CAN'T a new and actually accurate term be applied? Why must an old label, that is not really applicable, be forced clumsily and lazily there instead? You haven't yet addressed that question. You've been so busy trying to go toe-to-toe with me in collegiate oneupmanship that you haven't told me that simple, but pivotal thing yet.

 

[Zardnaar]

Diverse viewpoints such as what Zardnaar? That I'm a freak or worthy of abuse/extermination? Give me a break! Those aren't "diverse viewpoints", they're troubling indicators of future violence and they're not equivalent to people merely holding different views, they are holding views that demonstrably lead to people being harmed, implicitly and explicitly.

I don't want to be around anyone who thinks i don't have right to be who i am, you may tolerate that to varying degrees but i don't.

More economic stuff cloud or in your case large leaps of logic like trans women in sports. That's causing a WTH moment even in left wing circles and liberals, they're just to polite to say anything publically about in.

In private they are though. Patine and myself for example both agree neo liberal economics have failed.

The Nazis for example had some funny ideas about forcing economics to conform to their ideology. Didn't work, sane with Communists. Ideology doesn't trump basic supply and demand.
There's some hard core believers here that they can create unlimited money. Doesn't work that way in the real world, leads to hyperinflation.

Much like climate change deniers they dismiss the evidence because reality doesn't confirm with their beliefs.

 

[Patine]

It wasn't the same as the military-industrial complex but it wasn't the same as the Soviet Union either. It was a partner, junior partner admittedly, but not without influence.

But, corporate power today over government, and it's control of media, makes the entire socio-political landscape and battleground, and the power of wealthy billionaire business influences across the spectrum, from the surviving Koch Brother, the family that owns Chick Fil-A, etc. on the right, to George Soros, Warren Buffet, Oprah Winfrey, etc. on the left, to create a completely and radically different dynamic, even at the fundamental levels of affairs, than 1920's to 1940's Germany or the USSR could ever have had. The "corporate hand," changes EVERYTHING, really, including our ability to debate on the Internet!

 

[Gorbles]

I didn't compare them made the observation that when extremists are drawing lines in the sand by default you're trying to get moderates to join in.

"they're not the same thing but they have a similar effect" is a comparison. I don't particularly care if you agree at this point, just pointing it out. Bearing in mind you're the one feels the need to post whenever anyone goes within 20 kilometers of putting "conservative" and "fascist" together.

You're dismissal ignore my point. Why CAN'T a new and actually accurate term be applied? Why must an old label, that is not really applicable, be forced clumsily and lazily there instead? You haven't yet addressed that question. You've been so busy trying to go toe-to-toe with me in collegiate oneupmanship that you haven't told me that simple, but pivotal thing yet.

Patine, you've ignored a bunch of points I've made, but I've let it slide because I'm trying to engage with your arguments. You seem fixated on the existence of this label rather than what that label actually means. Besides, linguistically, old words gain new meanings all the while (especially in English, we have a bit of a messed up language to be honest).

If you want to make up a new phrase that isn't as nondescript as "modern right-wing", feel free. The problem is none of us have the power to enforce whatever word we choose on the rest of the discourse. I doubt any of us could succeed at getting the rest of Off Topic to use such a new word. This is why I'm asking - why can't you engage with the meaning - a meaning I feel I've handily explained - that sits beneath the words we're using here?

 

[Patine]

"they're not the same thing but they have a similar effect" is a comparison. I don't particularly care if you agree at this point, just pointing it out. Bearing in mind you're the one feels the need to post whenever anyone goes within 20 kilometers of putting "conservative" and "fascist" together.


Patine, you've ignored a bunch of points I've made, but I've let it slide because I'm trying to engage with your arguments. You seem fixated on the existence of this label rather than what that label actually means. Besides, linguistically, old words gain new meanings all the while (especially in English, we have a bit of a messed up language to be honest).

If you want to make up a new phrase that isn't as nondescript as "modern right-wing", feel free. The problem is none of us have the power to enforce whatever word we choose on the rest of the discourse. I doubt any of us could succeed at getting the rest of Off Topic to use such a new word. This is why I'm asking - why can't you engage with the meaning - a meaning I feel I've handily explained - that sits beneath the words we're using here?

I know exactly what the label means. And why it's usage is distorting viewpoints, is counter-productive, and, because it's often accusatorily, by implication levying greater charges of crime and atrocity on all but a small minority, in truth, for who it's massive, out-of-proportion, Spanish Inquisition-style label. Only a very small minority of modern First World Right-Wing adherents are AT ALL advocating for, or have any stomach or appetite, mass genocide and crimes against humanity that tiles "Fascist", and certainly "Nazi," would indict of. Mislabeling in socio-political circles is a very dangerous tactic that usually, historically, leads to abuses and atrocities committed BY those doing the mislabeling, even if the goal is to fight, prevent, or stop abuses and atrocities.

 

[zxcvbob]

Diverse viewpoints such as what Zardnaar? That I'm a freak or worthy of abuse/extermination? Give me a break! Those aren't "diverse viewpoints", they're troubling indicators of future violence and they're not equivalent to people merely holding different views, they are holding views that demonstrably lead to people being harmed, implicitly and explicitly.

I don't want to be around anyone who thinks i don't have right to be who i am, you may tolerate that to varying degrees but i don't.

Am I allowed to let you be who you are (because you have that right) but still think you're a freak? It's a serious question. Why do you need my affirmation?

 

[Patine]

Diverse viewpoints such as what Zardnaar? That I'm a freak or worthy of abuse/extermination? Give me a break! Those aren't "diverse viewpoints", they're troubling indicators of future violence and they're not equivalent to people merely holding different views, they are holding views that demonstrably lead to people being harmed, implicitly and explicitly.

I don't want to be around anyone who thinks i don't have right to be who i am, you may tolerate that to varying degrees but i don't.

I firmly you have the right to exist. I believe abuse and extermination is the same crime it would be by anyone to anyone. However, I do disagree with on other, but non-existential levels. Is that, by your views, automatically "troubling indicators of future violence" and not just dissenting and differing in various areas where I do not condone violence or disenfranchisement against you (or any other human being)?

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Am I allowed to let you be who you are (because you have that right) but still think you're a freak? It's a serious question. Why do you need my affirmation?

Because I don't want to be seen or treated as one. It's as simple as that, I want to be treated like a normal person and not looked down upon for reasons beyond my control.

I firmly you have the right to exist. I believe abuse and extermination is the same crime it would be by anyone to anyone. However, I do disagree with on other, but non-existential levels. Is that, by your views, automatically "troubling indicators of future violence" and not just dissenting and differing in various areas where I do not condone violence or disenfranchisement against you (or any other human being)?

If someone views certain groups as being inherently worth less than "normal" people, they're more willing to tolerate and carry out violence against them. This isn't rocket science, nor is it paranoia.

 

[Patine]

If someone views certain groups as being inherently worth less than "normal" people, they're more willing to tolerate and carry out violence against them. This isn't rocket science, nor is it paranoia.

What exactly are saying here? It doesn't look like you've answered my question - at least not directly.

 

[Gorbles]

I know exactly what the label means. And why it's usage is distorting viewpoints, is counter-productive, and, because it's often accusatorily, by implication levying greater charges of crime and atrocity on all but a small minority, in truth, for who it's massive, out-of-proportion, Spanish Inquisition-style label. Only a very small minority of modern First World Right-Wing adherents are AT ALL advocating for, or have any stomach or appetite, mass genocide and crimes against humanity that tiles "Fascist", and certainly "Nazi," would indict of. Mislabeling in socio-political circles is a very dangerous tactic that usually, historically, leads to abuses and atrocities committed BY those doing the mislabeling, even if the goal is to fight, prevent, or stop abuses and atrocities.

You're repeating yourself, and not actually answering any question I put to you.

Nevermind

 

[Patine]

You're repeating yourself, and not actually answering any question I put to you.

Nevermind

You're questions are posed and couched as though they were rhetorical, and then you pop again and demand an answer.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

What exactly are saying here? It doesn't look like you've answered my question - at least not directly.

Let me be blunt; I don't tolerate nor like anyone questioning my right to exist and whilst you may not go through the same amount of abuse that I get, my feelings and opinion is still valid and shouldn't be discounted.

Do you know how it feels to live in a society where people are seriously, genuinely unsure about whether you have a right to exist? To have bigots not only spout such views but also increase their numbers whilst others claim they merely have dissenting opinion; is it surely not logical for me to be opposed to that, If I wish to live my own life?

I want to be a normal person and be treated as such, not viewed as an undesirable or second class citizen. I just want to exist and not have to worry that someone is going to abuse and hurt me or kill me.

I'm not being unreasonable, I just want to exist and If you've never faced that pressure then that's valid for you but don't go downplaying the experience people who have.

 

[Patine]

Let me be blunt; I don't tolerate nor like anyone questioning my right to exist and whilst you may not go through the same amount of abuse that I get, my feelings and opinion is still valid and shouldn't be discounted.

Do you know how it feels to live in a society where people are seriously, genuinely unsure about whether you have a right to exist? To have bigots not only spout such views but also increase their numbers whilst others claim they merely have dissenting opinion; is it surely not logical for me to be opposed to that, If I wish to live my own life?

I want to be a normal person and be treated as such, not viewed as an undesirable or second class citizen. I just want to exist and not have to worry that someone is going to abuse and hurt me or kill me.

I'm not being unreasonable, I just want to exist and If you've never faced that pressure then that's valid for you but don't go downplaying the experience people who have.

Let me be frank. "Bigotry" as a phenomenon, is a very difficult thing to deal with. It's not something where any solution expecting quick and decisive results is even realistic. I really wish it were different - and I am not just "resigned" or "passive" to that, like you accuse me of. I'm a big believer in the ideal of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream, including those individuals, like yourself, he couldn't publicly speak of in the '60's. But "violent retaliation," "mass disenfranchisement," and "calling people to account for their vote" (irrespective of why they made such a vote, or how horrible, or at least as bad, the alternative was, like the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election) is not a solution that's realistic. "Bigotry," like similar qualities that are not necessarily obvious in one's personal appearance, like certain ideologies or supporters of treason or closet practitioners of religions and such targeted by past, historic regimes, ALWAYS leads to horrific tactics, abuses and atrocities, and a lot of innocent people going along with a guilty (usually minority). As much as faster and more definitive solutions SHOULD be possible with any productive results, they aren't. It's not just, it's not fair, it's not right, and I'm not AT ALL in support of that fact, and I wish more was realistically possible more readily that is actually productive and not prone to become as bad as the problem. I have said this before, but you misunderstood my intentions and my point-of-view. I support, in a grand, overarching sense, what you do. It was I started speaking about the reality of the situation, above ANY individual person's power to change, that you had become unreasoningly hostile to me.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Mate I just want to live in society and not be treated like ****, that's all I want okay?

Your claims and beliefs just don't wash with me.

 

[Patine]

Mate I just want to live in society and not be treated like ****, that's all I want okay?

Your claims and beliefs just don't wash with me.

Which claims and beliefs? My knowledge of how the world and society is as fact, and the incorrigible cesspool it, and many of it's occupants can be, and how change in a meaningful level is not usually achieved that quickly and productively? The knowledge from history that the tactics you're proposing, even if starting with good intention, seem to never be able to help being utter atrocities in and of themselves? These aren't claims or beliefs. Unfortunately, and as much as I'd like it to be otherwise, these are facts of this grim, cold, dark world. Simplistic, "magic-wand solutions," are either impossible, or always to great evil themselves. I wish it were otherwise - but indeed, these are not just "claims and beliefs," and you do not possess the individual power - nor does any other single human being - to change or disregard that simply because it doesn't "wash."